DB Design: Quote - > Order Advice

[versatilewt]

Hi,
I have a project where every lead comes in as a quote, is followed up with, and then finally an order is placed. So, the entry is first in a quote table, and then once all is finalized, it is placed as an order.

I'm debating how to approach the table structure, as I'm revising there rest of the application. Would it make more sense to have a separate "orders" and "quotes" tables, or to have a single table with a orders/quotes flag column? If I did the multiple table approach, I would have order_line_item and quote_line_item tables for each as well.

 Any advice or thoughts will be appreciated.

Regards,
brian

[leatherback]

Hey Brian,

This is a bit dependent on the amount of new information that an order would get over a quote.

I would personally go for an one table approach, with a switch between order and quotes, as it would allow for easy display, and minimal need to copy information across. However, in this scenario you also need to consider whether you would want to keep the quotes for future reference or not and things.

In the end this comes down to personal preference, I think. But the ability to re-use pretty much all code you may create for quotes is nice.. In your case I cannot find any convincing reasons for a preference either way, except for the fact that the information stored is probably pretty much the same between the two sets.